In July, I had the honor of attending the USCCB’s Convocation of Catholic Leaders in Orlando, Florida. The convocation focused on Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation The Joy of the Gospel. In this document, our Holy Father instructs Christians to “appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty.”
When you think of writing your legal will, you probably think of meeting with an estate attorney to draft your last will and testament. These legal documents specify, among other things, your plans to leave the assets you’ve accumulated over your lifetime to your loved ones. Additionally, a legal will may also include your plans to make charitable gifts to specific charities or organizations in the community. In short, a legal will is about leaving your valuables to those persons or organizations you’ve cared about during your lifetime. But how do you make these decisions?
In August, Senior Accountant and Lead Financial Analyst, Becky Abbott, celebrated 20 years with the Catholic Community Foundation. Colleague Bill Marsella describes Becky as one of the Foundation’s private faces. “Her fingerprints are literally on every piece of paper that’s ever been important to the accomplishments of the Foundation over the last 20 years.”
Young families, busy with little ones and bedtimes, are hungry for a ministry that doesn’t just accommodate their precious kids but serves them. Alan and Joanne Foley, a Twin Cities couple, knows this well. With a heart for the Faith and extensive experience with Minnesota public schools’ popular Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) model, they created Early Catholic Family Life (ECFL) to…
Recently, the Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota (CCF) teamed up with Catholic Schools Center of Excellence (CSCOE) and the Office for the Mission of Catholic Education at the Archdiocese (OMCE) to offer a program to Catholic elementary educators called the Summer of Excellence.
At the beginning of each new year, I dream about what the months ahead will hold for my family, the world around us and, of course, the work of the Catholic Community Foundation (CCF). Pope Francis himself encourages all of us to dream, telling the crowds at World Youth Day in Kraków, Poland last July that God “wants to make you see that, with you, the world can be different.”
With the April tax deadline fast approaching, Americans start to realize we maybe should have made additional charitable gifts in 2016 to receive a more robust tax deduction. The good news is, with a little planning, you can turn that realization into next year’s reality. It’s never too early to plan ways to maximize the impact of your charitable gifts and achieve a favorable tax outcome for 2017 at the same time.
More U.S. dioceses are turning to foundations to help meet their financial and fundraising priorities. And foundation executives in the diocesan realm believe they’ve only begun to tap into the potential for these gifts.
Dan McKune, executive director of Catholic Community Foundation of Mid-Michigan, which covers the Diocese of Saginaw, said Catholic donors are used to giving to an annual diocesan appeal or a school fund. “But we still are not where we want to be,” he said. “Our donor base is about 1,000 people, and they’ve been very, very good givers.” However, he thinks the foundation could attract and retain 2,500 donors — and possibly twice that.
The way the Saginaw foundation is set up, it “deals more in perpetual-type funds,” McKune said. “Once the money goes [to the foundation], you don’t ask for it back.”
Anne Cullen Miller, executive director of the St. Paul-based Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota, said a Catholic community foundation provides a way to diversify fundraising strategies, moving beyond an annual appeal and weekly giving.
We are pleased to announce that Mary Haeg joined the Catholic Community Foundation (CCF) in January. As our Development/Gift Planning Officer, Mary will assist Vice President of Development and Donor Relations Richard Olson with the stewardship of individual planned gifts made to the Foundation. Though she originally hails from Minnesota, Mary comes to us from a three-year stint in Georgia, where she served as development director at Macon Volunteer Clinic…
For Larry and Suzanne Vanden Plas, investing for charitable giving is about the corporal works of mercy: They perform the works they can, and they support local organizations to do what they can’t with gifts from their donor-advised fund managed by Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota.
“When you look at the corporal works of mercy, how would you do that?” asked Larry, who along with Suzanne belongs to St. John the Baptist in New Brighton. “If you limit yourself to only those situations that you personally could do, one to one, you’re going to miss out on most of it … What we can do is support these different activities and actually be personally involved in some of them.”
To receive insights and updates to help them in what is often more long-term stewardship, the Vanden Plases and more than 200 other individual donors, financial advisors, and representatives of parishes and other Catholic organizations attended the St. Paul-based foundation’s 22nd annual investment conference Feb. 8 at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.